Yuri Gastev (22 March 1928, in

Moscow Moscow is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Russia by population, largest city of Russia, standing on the Moskva (river), Moskva River in Central Russia. It has a population estimated at over 13 million residents with ...

– 12 October 1993, in

Boston Boston is the capital and most populous city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the United States. The city serves as the cultural and Financial centre, financial center of New England, a region of the Northeas ...

) was a Soviet mathematician and cybernetician who became an active dissident, finally emigrating to the USA. Yuri was the son of

Aleksei Gastev Aleksei Kapitonovich Gastev () (8 October 1882, Suzdal, Vladimir Governorate – 15 April 1939, Kommunarka, Moscow) was a Russian revolutionary, a pioneering theorist of the scientific management of labour in Soviet Russia, a trade-union a ...

, the revolutionary poet who later became an advocate of

scientific management Scientific management is a theory of management that analyzes and synthesizes workflows. Its main objective is improving economic efficiency, especially labor productivity. It was one of the earliest attempts to apply science to the engineer ...

. Aleksei was arrested in 1938 as part of the

Great Purge The Great Purge, or the Great Terror (), also known as the Year of '37 () and the Yezhovshchina ( , ), was a political purge in the Soviet Union that took place from 1936 to 1938. After the Assassination of Sergei Kirov, assassination of ...

and murdered the following year. Yuri left school at 15 and started attending

Moscow University Moscow State University (MSU), officially M. V. Lomonosov Moscow State University,. is a public research university in Moscow, Russia. The university includes 15 research institutes, 43 faculties, more than 300 departments, and six branches. Al ...

. However two years later in 1945 he was arrested for anti-Soviet activity. Upon release he settled in

Estonia Estonia, officially the Republic of Estonia, is a country in Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland across from Finland, to the west by the Baltic Sea across from Sweden, to the south by Latvia, and to the east by Ru ...

working as a labourer and as a teacher. At the time of

Stalin Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Dzhugashvili; 5 March 1953) was a Soviet politician and revolutionary who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until Death and state funeral of Joseph Stalin, his death in 1953. He held power as General Secret ...

's death in 1953 Gastev was in hospital. When it was announced on the radio that Stalin had fallen into Cheyne-Stokes breathing, another patient, being a doctor, recognised the significance of this and declared "Cheyne-Stokes is the end, time to get out the bottle". He included references to Cheyne-Stokes when defending his degree thesis, and added references to it in a book he wrote for the Soviet Cybernetics Council. This later cases was spotted leading to the editor being sacked. Gastev had already been sacked so no action was taken against him. In 1981 he emigrated to

France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...

, then to the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

. Gastev died of cancer in New England Deaconess Hospital on 12 October 1993.

Works

* 1964 "Metatheory" with I. Shmain in ''Filosofskaya entsiklopediya'', Vol. 3, Moscow pp. 400–402

References

1928 births 1993 deaths Soviet mathematicians Soviet expatriates in France Soviet emigrants to the United States {{Europe-mathematician-stub